Written by

Carrie Whitaker | cwhitaker@enquirer.com

Chief Craig announces he is leaving Portland for C...: Cincinnati City Manager Milton Dohoney announced Tuesday that Portland Police Chief James Craig will replace former Cincinnati Chief Tom Streicher, who retired in March.

City Manager Milton Dohoney announces that Craig will become Cincinnati's next police chief. Behind Dohoney are council members Cecil Thomas (left) and Wendell Young. / The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran

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In two years as police chief in Portland, Maine, James Craig reduced crime, bridged a divide between police and the city’s growing immigrant communities and cut the budget, according to sources in Portland.

Named Tuesday by Cincinnati City Manager Milton Dohoney as the next leader of the Cincinnati Police Department – historic both in that Craig is the first chief hired from outside the city’s police ranks and is the first African-American for the job – Craig said he knows he’ll face unique challenges in Cincinnati when he begins his new role here in a month, but said he’s not one to shy away from a challenge.

“It’s no secret I’ve been an outsider most of my career,” Craig said by phone after the Tuesday announcement. “People keep asking, ‘Are you going to do exactly what you did in L.A. and Portland?’ I don’t know yet. I can tell you I know of some basic strategies that work and I believe in partnerships.”

He said he’s confident his experience in leadership roles during his short but successful tenure in Portland and 28 years working for the Los Angeles Police Department will serve him and Cincinnati well. City leaders hope so, and will pay him $135,000 a year, compared to $93,000 in Portland. He made $170,000 in his last year before retirement from the LAPD.

He replaces Tom Streicher, who retired in March. He earned $127,483 in base pay his last year.

“He’s been fantastic,” Portland City Councilwoman Jill Duson said Tuesday. “He managed to do that combination of tapping the right people, both experienced and new. He brought a lot of energy to the city.”

Craig said his first step in Cincinnati will be analyzing the city’s police operations and personnel from top to bottom and talking to individuals at all levels of command to determine whether the right people are in the right positions and where efficiencies can be made.

“Chief Craig is extremely well qualified,” said Mayor Mark Mallory, who has had no part in the hiring process, but said he is thrilled with the news. “He has been in departments small and very large; he’s seen it all. … It is a big day for Cincinnati.”

A multi-faceted approach

Craig said you have to earn respect as an outsider and to do that he plans to engage as many facets of the Cincinnati community as he can in creative ways. He also wants to improve upon CPD’s use of computer statistics and intelligence-led policing to reduce crime and prove to the rank-and-file that what they think matters.

Craig said he held forums with many different groups during his time in Portland – including business, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and the deaf community – to make sure he was aware of their concerns.

“James Craig knows it shouldn’t feel like the police occupy a community, but are a part of it,” said Los Angeles councilman and former LAPD police chief Bernard Parks.

Portland’s Duson echoed the sentiment, saying that when Craig started the job in Portland there was unrest in a Somali and Sudanese community, where one young man died as the result of a crime and another had been wounded in a police shooting.

“There was tension between the force and the community and he managed it by jumping in and talking to people,” Duson said. “He was the type to stay in for the long haul and rebuild the relationship.”

On Tuesday, Dohoney said one of Craig’s goals should be reducing shootings and homicides, but local NAACP President Chris Smitherman said that to reduce violence, the chief should focus on stamping out the drug trade.

“There are things we are doing right, like officers on bikes and on foot,” Smitherman said. “I want to continue to see them engaging citizens.”

Smitherman said the city manager and Craig have already accepted an invitation to speak at the NAACP’s August meeting and that’s a sign of good faith.

Craig likes to engage the community in creative ways. An avid car enthusiast, Craig began a car show in Los Angeles and continued it in Portland. It doubled as a recruitment event for the police department and proceeds benefited youth programs.

“He’s really a pleasure,” said Kal Rogers, membership director for the Portland Motor Club, which sponsored the car show this year. “To his credit (the show) is something he really set in motion. He’s made a big difference in our city and I hope it will last beyond his tenure.”

As for reducing crime, Craig showed he could do that in both Los Angeles, where the city’s Southwest area saw a 27 percent decrease in violent crime and 21 percent decrease in property crime while he was commander, and Portland, where he implemented a data analysis process known as CompStat that resulted in a 10 percent drop in violent crime in the first three months, according to his resume. CompStat is also utilized by the Cincinnati police.

Craig said he can’t be sure about what’s appropriate to change in Cincinnati until he gets here, but is sure there’s room for improvement as long as everyone in the organization is on the same page.

One of his former bosses in the LAPD, Bill Bratton, was known to use the phase, “Cops count,” Craig said. He takes the saying a bit further.

“If you want police to treat the community right, we as leaders must treat the police right,” Craig said. “Not that we don’t hold them accountable or have standards of excellence, but as important is rewarding people for great work.”

Confronting underlying issues

Aside from intense focus on community partnerships and safer streets, Craig said he will find inefficiencies in the Cincinnati Police Department and be a change agent.

“They’ll hear me ask, ‘Why do we do X, Y, Z?’” Craig said. “If the only answer they can find is it’s the way it’s always been done, we’ll probably think about changing that.”

When Craig took over the Portland post, officers asked if he would consider changing their work week of five eight-hour days to four 10-hour days, a request they said his predecessor had not entertained.

Craig put a committee together and within two months a recommendation for a new schedule of four 10-hour days was cobbled together and approved by the police union. In the end it saved the city of Portland roughly $39,000 a year in overtime and satisfied the rank and file.

Craig said he knows that sounds like chump change by Cincinnati standards, where he will be in charge of roughly a third of the city’s budget, but the benefit of having a fresh pair of eyes in a police organization is seeing efficiencies that were previously overlooked, Craig said.

“I understand there is a pretty substantial deficit right now,” Craig said. “I always have had an eye as to how to save money.”

Dohoney said part of the reason he chose Craig was his preparedness for the job even before he got it.

“I really tried to engage all four of the finalists,” Dohoney said after he made the public announcement at 9:30 a.m. “From the very first time I spoke with Craig, he just stood out and he continued to stand out. He was fully prepared and he did his research on the city and department and on issues that have nothing to do with police, but are relevant to the city.”

In Portland he found some creative ways to move officers around and not lay anyone off, he said, but he can’t speculate how he will handle budget issues quite yet, he said.

FOP President Kathy Harrell said Tuesday that Cincinnati officers will not have a problem accepting an outsider.

She said by 11 a.m. she had received more calls than she could count from officers of all levels, police leaders and union leaders from all over the country, and not one of the calls was negative.

“I’m glad the process is finally over,” Harrell said. “We need to get a permanent full-time chief in place as soon as possible … not knowing and having that out there, it did slow down things.”